Graves in the snow
by Sinister Tomato
Summary: Even in a hundred years, I don't get tired of the snow.


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Disclaimer: No, I don't own full metal alchemist. I just watch, read, and enjoy the things that come with it. So do not sue me.

Warning: Sort of spoilers from episode 50.

Notes: Alright, it's official, I suck with titles and summaries...I bet I even got the genre all weird. Anyway, this is just a little one-shot I was toying with for Christmas. It's going to seem a little repetitive with the "younger" and the "older". That is because I don't know their former names and I couldn't bring myself to make up any. Don't understand what I'm talking about? Read and you will.

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"Look, brother!"

The young blonde boy stared skeptically at his younger brother's uneven snow angel. He tugged at the hem of his white cotton shirt, brushing off crumbs from his feast of stolen oatmeal cookies. "Really, you dolt, it's just snow."

"Don't call me names just because you can't handle the cold."

"Who are you calling too fragile to handle a couple of snowflakes!?"

"You. Do you see anyone else out here?"

In an instant, they were both rolling down a hill, plowing a bumpy path through the snow. They punched and kicked at each other but neither could feel pain. Their skin turned numb and slightly blue from the cold. They stopped and lay immobile on the snow, watching their breath quickly dissipating as they panted.

"Brother?"

"What?"

"Time to leave?"

"I think so, yeah."

Their walk home was uneventful except for the occasional exchange of punches. They childishly stuck out their tongues in hopes of catching a snowflake on their pinkish red appendages.

"I ought a!"

The older raised a thin eyebrow.

"Huh? You oughta what?"

The younger shut his mouth and reopened it to reply.

"I said I caught one!"

The older snorted.

"You speak like a fish."

"You try talking without closing your mouth."

"No. I don't see why I should."

"That was a rhetorical statement."

The older quirked the corners of his lips into a wide and playful smirk.

"I know, but I always respond to them, remember?"

They chased each other playfully the rest of the way back. When they arrived on their doorstep, their faces turned grim. There, they had to face the wrath of their mother. The all-powerful wielder of the copper kettle. Alchemy too, of course, but they were more afraid of the kettle than her alchemy.

"You're both wet! What have I told you two about playing in the snow?"

The two brothers recited their mother's favorite phrase of the winter in monotones.

"'If this keeps up, you two will catch your deaths of colds.' We know, mum, we know."

She pursed her lips at their recitation but said nothing about it. "Go dry yourselves off.

Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes."

"Yes mum," the two boys chorused.

As the younger ran to their room while throwing off his wet blue shirt, the older stopped in front of the old door next to the stairs. The original brown paint was beginning to peel off. He peered through the crack of the door, his small hand on the frame. A blonde pony-tail was inside bobbing up and down. The sounds of scribbling tore through the silence of the room like a blade on flesh.

The boy turned away from the door and walked to his brother's side. "I sometimes wonder what he does in there."

The younger peered through the top of his collared shirt, his voice muffled by the cloth persistently making it's way into his mouth.

"Who?"

"Dad. He takes lots of notes and he's in there most of the time."

"He's a really good and famous alchemist. Almost everyone knows his name around here. You know that. And it's not like he neglects us."

"Yes, but he never teaches us anything about alchemy. Neither does mum."

The younger peeled off his damp, black shorts and wiped his legs dry with a towel.

"Maybe it's too dangerous. Alchemists have to handle all these poisonous chemicals and everything."

"It's _that _dangerous and they both still do it?"

"Well, maybe they're exceptionally good at it."

"Whatever. I'm going in that room."

"What?"

"I'm going in when he comes out. I just want to know what he's doing that's so important. He's been in there all week working on some important experiment. I want to see what all the fuss is about."

The younger tripped as he tried to pull on a dry pair of cotton pants.

"Brother, you know we'll be punished!"

The older raised a quizzical eyebrow at the wriggling figure on the floor.

"We? You don't have to come with me."

A deep scowl took over the round face of the younger as he continued wrestling on his pants.

"But you know I will, anyway." He stood up and added after an afterthought, "In fact, I bet you'd already expected it."

A smirk threatened to split the older brother's face.

"Exactly."

The dark brown oak floorboards creaked just outside their door. The boys turned around to see their father beaming at them tiredly through golden spectacles. "Come now, boys. Downstairs or your mother will have all three of our heads. You know how hard she works on Christmas." He nodded at them and turned from the door and walked down the narrow hallway to the stairs. The blonde boy turned, raised a hand, and ruffled his younger brother's darker colored hair.

"Are you sure your coming?"

The younger scoffed out his reply with indignation while brushing a lock of his darker hair out of his eyes.

"Like I have a choice."

Acting like two cat burglars on the heist of the century, they tiptoed their way into their father's study. Books and papers were strewn about. Notebooks were piled heavily on the oak desk. Quill pens were stuck in all sorts of directions throughout the room, in books, in the wall, in the floor, even on the desk.

The younger brother's attention was fixed on a door by a beaten chair. He poked his brother in the ribs to grab his attention. Both of them walked slowly to the door, both dodging whatever was in their way, neither daring to disturb anything from it's place. The door looked ready to fall off it's hinges. Pieces of it were chipped off and it looked like it was rotting. The older turned the rusted knob and the door creaked quietly open. They looked at the rotting spiral staircase and at each other.

The younger was quicker to speak. "You first."

The older scowled deeply. "Coward."

The damp, rotting boards of the stairs creaked under their boots. It sounded as if it were threatening to snap under their weight. The light coming from below was dim. The air was filled with a foul stench that neither could quite put their fingers on. It was unlike anything they'd ever smelt.

The younger reached out and gripped the hem of his brother's still damp shirt with both of his small hands.

"Brother…"

"What?"

"I'm feeling dizzy…"

The older couldn't agree more with his brother this time.

"Me too. I think it's the smell."

A small finger pointed down. "I think it's the fumes coming from that thing on the stove."

A large vial of silver-colored liquid was stuck into a large clear beaker of boiling water. The silver liquid bubbled slowly in small bursts.

"Do you think that's Dad's experiment?"

"Toxic fumes?"

"No. That silver stuff."

"Maybe…But that stuff looks familiar."

The closer they came to the bubbling substance, the worse they felt. They both had one hand clamped around their noses in a futile attempt to ward away the stench. The younger was the first to speak again, this time to both their misfortune.

"Brother, I think the smell's hurting my insides."

The older turned around and pushed the younger up a step. He pushed again, this time more gently to urge his brother back up.

"Come on, let's go. They'll stop hurting once we get out of here."

They began to walk back up the stairs when the younger stopped. He felt very disoriented and dizzy. He felt suffocated and his lungs seemed to burn. He tried to speak but nothing would come out. He tried to move but his limbs felt numb and this time it wasn't from the cold. His vision seemed to fade as he felt himself fall backwards.

The older felt no better and was knocked down by his brother. They tumbled down the stairs, neither really registering what was happening. They stopped in the middle of the room in a tangle of limbs. Neither could see, breath, or move. They could still hear, though. Shouts in a deep baritone voice came from above them. The boys were caught.

High-pitched screams and sobs emitted from above. This told the disoriented boys that the people above were very much distraught and they couldn't have seemed to care less about their intrusion.

The shouts and screams faded into the darkness with everything else.

And the brothers knew no more.

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"Died from mercury poisoning. They didn't put that on the gravestones, did they?

"No. Our 'parents' would've been accused of being bad parents, letting their children come within exposure range of mercury."

"Ironic, isn't it, though?"

"What?"

"They tried to bring their children back and not only did they fail but they created us, empty abominations that remind them of what they once had, created unknowingly by human experimentations on alchemy. And now we sit on 'our' headstones, a hundred years later, on Christmas, with nothing to do but remember things from our past lives, when we had souls."

"Yes, but please don't spout out sappy depression-ridden poetry like you did last year. I'd hate to have to knock your head off again. You know I despise fighting."

"Fine. Would you rather I spout poetic pieces of happiness about sunshine and butterflies?"

"Do shut up, you dolt."

"Don't be such a grump, brother."

"Don't get too much in the habit of using 'brother'. 'Mother' would have your head. Besides, if 'mother' found out about this, she'd never let us have another outing."

"I know, I know. She's not often wrong, is she...But I suppose we've proven her wrong, haven't we?"

"How so?"

"She said we'd catch our deaths of colds, remember? One of the things she said most often on winters."

"Ah, yes...It's a shame, really, that we can't gloat in her face that she was wrong that time. Speaking of time, what time is it?"

"It's...nine o'clock. Still a bit early in the night, don't you think? What do you want to do now?"

"Let me see…We've already made some ugly snow angels and our snowmen are in our _perfect_ likenesses…"

"Perfect likenesses my arse…"

"…There is nothing else to do, really, but watch the snow fall. Even after a hundred years, I don't get tired of the snow."

"I don't get tired of it either, but are you sure, dear brother Envy, that you can handle the cold?"

"Hmph, saying that I'm too fragile to handle a couple of snowflakes, are you Greed?"

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A/N: Whether you liked it or not or just whatever, give me some constructive criticism. As for flames…Just don't flame. You'd be wasting your time anyway.

Alright, time for some **explanations**. In the timeline, Envy and Greed are around 400 years old, give or take a few years. People who have seen episode 50 know that Envy is (or was) Hohenheim and Dante's illegitimate love child and that he died very young from mercury poisoning. Hohenheim tried to bring him back, failed, and abandoned the homunculus we know as Envy. As for Greed, he is apparently Dante's creation. This speculation of Envy and Greed being "brothers" isn't proven or anything, it's just played around with. So don't take it seriously.


End file.
